my insight of the day

Today as I was talking with a friend who is a father, and a pretty good one I think, I was trying to explain to him how being a Grandmother is different from being a Mother. As I struggled to find words it became clear to me. When I saw my granddaughter for the first time, my heart was filled. I told him that she had filled my heart, and everything that was bad and didn't belong there went away, because there was no room for it anymore. There are things from my past that I can look back on and be upset or depressed about, but Kahlan is here and she is healthy and happy. What does anything that happened last year, or ten years ago or longer matter anymore? It doesn't. Her little tiny self has pushed out all the negativity in my life. When she looks at me, I forget anything that has happened before. She pulls me into 'now'. You have to be present with an infant- all the time. You can't dwell on things that aren't important, because there simply isn't time. Everything in her world is new. I look forward so much to watching her discover things, and rediscovering those things myself. My deepest and most sincere hope is that nothing ever hurts her so deeply that she loses the overwhelming love of life that she seems to have now. She is still so young and fragile, but she has changed me, and i am so thankful for her and her Mommy. What a blessing to our family she is.

The Grandma Days

I have just come back from spending almost a week with my daughter and son in law, and granddaughter. It was, let's see- exciting, tiring, fulfilling, touching, worrisome, and treasured. I slept in the nursery with the baby, which was totally fine with me. It was her first time sleeping all night in her big crib, and not in the bassinet in her parents room. I was a transition! She is simply lovely. 5 weeks old while I was there, and starting to do some fun things. She actually rolled from tummy to back 4 times while I was there. That was exciting, but I kept thinking that she was already growing too fast!! I'm sure she is and will continue to do so. She resembles her mother a lot at that age, and sometimes, I could almost flashback to holding my daughter, while looking at her.
I remember when my kids were babies, thinking it would never end- the night feedings, and the diapers, and never ending laundry. Now, when I am with Kahlan, I am thinking, please don't let it end so fast! It has become impossible for me to go anywhere without thinking about that baby. I see things in a store and I wonder if she'd like it, or would it fit her. I see moms with their kids and wonder what it will be like for Kathy to take her shopping for school supplies and clothes. People told me before she came, that it would change my life. I'll admit, I didn't really understand it. I mean, I knew I would love her immediately, and that was certainly true. I didn't expect that my whole world would be different. It is. My world is very different now. My tolerance for things and interest in things has changed. If she can change me that much in 5 weeks, what will it be like in 5 years?! Time will tell.

The Beginning Blog!

Today my granddaughter is one month old. It's hard to believe, but there it is. She's been here for an entire month! We were all so impatient for her to arrive, and so thrilled when she did.
She is a lovely little girl with a darling smile. Yes- she smiles. I know she isn't supposed to be really smiling yet, but trust me- she does.
I think because I have recently become a Grandma, I have been thinking about my own Grandmother,( I just had one, my father's mother died a few hours after his birth). She always kept a diary. She wrote in it every night before she went to bed. She took it on vacations and wrote in the car, about the sights they passed and what they did. When I turned 12, I think, Grandma started giving me a diary every year too. I wish I had written regularly, but I didn't. Grandma's though- years of them- are still with us! These diaries were a peak into her life, and I think that I want to do something like that for my grandchild.
So, there it is- a piece of my days captured in a blog.  Or at least, that's what I hope it becomes!
Today, we are at our house in Kansas. We bought this place in 2000, for some reason neither of us really could understand, but I loved it the first time I saw it. We lived in Wichita then, and came out here on the weekends to relax. We had begun to take weekend fishing/camping trips around in the area, and thought about getting a cabin of some sort. We found one for sale, and put money down on it, but the family backed out on the sale. We were so disappointed, and I became determined to find a place. We looked at a few, all in Southeastern Kansas. Nothing really seemed quite right until we saw this house. It started out as a single room cabin, and the owners built on and added until it is now about 2400 sq. feet. It has a downstairs, that we have been remodeling this summer, and the main floor, with an addition that is a half story up where Kathy's room is. It's hard to explain this place, and harder to explain how I feel when I am here. There is something comforting about being here. There always has been. It is surrounded by trees, with a small lake across the road. We also have property on that lake, with a little dock. We have a bass boat there, and our fishing gear is stored in an old cabin that was on the lot when we bought it. Our life here is very different from the life we lead in Oklahoma, and a total opposite of what it was like in Louisiana. I'm sure I will write about those years--the Louisiana years, but not today. Today, I am getting a feel for this idea. I have kept journals for many years, but this is different in some way. For now, I think this is enough for a start.